


twist of fate

by SwiftyTheWriter



Series: February 13,1981 [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Awesome Lily Potter, Awesome Luna Lovegood, Bad Dursleys, Child Abuse, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Seer Luna Lovegood, What Have I Done, except for Voldemort, im gonna stop tagging, irredeemable Dursleys, oh god all the angst, seriously i am a terrible person for writing this, there is very little fluff in this, this is mostly his fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:12:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwiftyTheWriter/pseuds/SwiftyTheWriter
Summary: Luna was never meant to be The-Girl-Who-Lived. Destiny doesn't seem to care.





	twist of fate

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I got an idea based on my au "together or not at all" that wouldn't leave me alone till I wrote it. I'd recommend reading that before hand cause it'd lend more context to this fic and also why I am a terrible person for writing this. Enjoy!

This is how it begins:

On February 16, 1981, Lady Lily Potter holds her goddaughter in her arms for the first time and knows her friend is dead.

Pandora died along with her husband, the kind Xenophilius. They were murdered and their daughter is barely three days old and now an orphan and Lily finds herself fighting a scream.

War isn’t kind to anyone.

Baby Luna reached out with a tiny hand and grasped Lily’s finger and something of the fire in Lily quieted and hardened into resolve.

Lily was going to protect her children, at any cost.

* * *

 

On February 23, 1981, Luna was formally adopted into the House Potter. It wasn’t a hard task for the Family Magic to accept her, her great-grandmother had been a Potter, after all.

A Patronus caught the new family as they left Gringotts. Someone had broken through the wards on the Potter townhouse and burned it to the ground. They didn’t need to ask who.

They moved in the cottage in Godric's Hollow two hours later and only paused to be thankful that they had brought Harry along to the adoption ceremony instead of letting him be babysat like Peter had offered.

Lily watched her two children curled up together in their new and hastily conjured crib. They had been practically inseparable from the moment they met. It was the only good thing to come out of these advents.

* * *

  
It was February 27, 1981.

Lily Potter was not a fool and refused to be treated as such and informed Albus of this when she cornered him at the next Order meeting.

The meeting had taken place in the cottage after Albus had put the Fidelius Charm up. While a bit cramped, it was safer than the last meeting place and it was judged too dangerous for Lily and James to leave the protection of the walls.

What Lily wanted to know was why.

After she asked, Albus looked at her a long moment then sighed. His eyes had lost their usual twinkle and he looked...old.

Lily ruthlessly pushed the pang of guilt away.

“Albus,” Lily tried again. “I need to know why we are being hunted like this and please, don’t give me the story of being on You-know-who’s shit list for turning down recruitment and then pissing him off. I’m not a bloody idiot. Half the order have dealt more serious slights to the death eaters and we are not the only members with children to care for.”

Albus chuckled a bit at that, though his eyes showed no mirth, “You and dear Alice are rather similar in this respect, Lily. She had the same questions for me when I put up the Fidelius charm in her house. And,” Her former headmaster looked seriously at her. “I’m afraid she didn’t like the answers.”

“Tell me,” Lily’s voice left no room to be swayed.

“You must swear on your life and magic to never tell a soul,” Albus cautioned. “Not even James can know.”

Her face was resolute, “I, Lady Lily Potter nee Evans do hereby swear on my life, my blood, my magic to never reveal what secret Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore departs to me on this day. So mote it be.”

At the flare of magic, Albus speaks and speaks and doesn't stop. Lily listened and felt the world drop out from under her feet.

He was right. She didn’t like the answer.

* * *

 

The day was August 12, 1981.

Lily leant over to sketch a diagram with an intense eye. Scrolls of parchment littered the floor. Months spent scouring the library for something, anything to save her child had amounted to this.

She had reread a tome made about five and a half centuries ago for the fourth time when she found it. A note was scrawled in the reference section to a sister book. She had then harassed Remus to scoring Knockturn looking for it and spent a hefty sum to purchase it.

It was a ritual book on Olde Magik, borderline dark. The kind that would be declared dark if the ministry had any clue it existed. She didn’t care. She had finally found something that could save her children.

Lily had never put much stock in fate.

It was a ritual for blood for blood. The gist of it was if the declared enemy of a bloodline would shed mortal blood with the express purpose of wiping said bloodline out, they could reap a curse that would return their intention sevenfold.

The details were equal parts vague and complicated but it would work. It had too.

James, Harry and Luna were now by blood the last of the Potter line.

She would save her children’s lives and if that failed, have them all die taking that bastard with them.

 

* * *

 

It was October 31, 1981.

She was on the last stage, carving runes into the walls with a knife soaked in her family’s blood when a crash came from downstairs. Her hand holding the knife jerked imperceptibly but she didn’t notice.

“Lily!” James shouted to her. “Take the children and run!”

There were the sounds of fighting and then silence and Lily forced herself to work past the lump in her throat. She carved frantically the last pieces before dropping the knife and standing before her children.

The runes warmed behind Lily, signaling that James was dead. The ritual was half complete. It just needed another sacrifice.

She knew what she had to do.

Voldemort stood in her doorway. The red eyed man twirled his wand casually, as if he didn’t just murder her husband and was planning to send her and her children with him.

 

“Step aside,” He said quietly.

 

“Please,” she begged. “Not my babies.”

 

Enemy of mine bloode be stricken.

 

“Stand aside, foolish girl,” He snarled, red eyes alight with ire.

 

She wasn’t afraid.

 

“Please, don’t kill them!”

 

What had been dealt shall return sevenfold.

 

“Very well.”

 

So mote it be.

 

“AVADA KEDAV-”

 

Silence.

* * *

 

Here’s what happened:

Two years prior, an oracle named Sybill Trelawney gave a prophecy during a job interview to all the right ears and two very powerful men forgot that prophecies only show events of possible futures, not set ones.

On October 31, 1981, James died and Lily’s hand slipped, just a moment, and the consequences were dire.

The ritual Lily Potter invoked was not one of love but of vengeance and protection. To protect the last of a bloodline was Olde and powerful magic. It required precision and sacrifice.

In another life she would have received the tome she was looking for a day earlier and she would’ve finished the ritual a day earlier.

But in this life, her dear friend Remus Lupin had gotten pick pocketed by a man named Mundungus Fletcher and spent a day looking for his wallet.

In this life, Lily didn’t have enough time and a minute twitch to her wrist changed the entire rune.

In this life, the man calling himself Lord Voldemort stepped over the corpse of Lily Potter and casted “Avada Kedavra” on a crying baby boy who stood in front of his sister, and the curse held.

In this life, Luna spoke her first word to a madman after watching her adopted family die in front of her.

Her brother fell and Luna screamed, “No!”

Voldemort looked up with disinterest at her cry and cast “Avada Kedavra” on her with a lazy flick of his wand.

The curse rebounded.

The runes burned crimson in the low light.

What has been dealt will return seven fold.

The man calling himself Lord Voldemort didn’t have time to scream.

 

A rat had crept up the stairs to find his master missing. He picked up the wand out of the pile of what looked like charred robes and escaped.

 

Severus Snape came to look for his childhood friend and what he found very nearly broke him.

 

Sirius Orion Black crashed into the nursery and fell to his knees in grief.

James, Lily,and-oh god-the babies Harry and Luna… All dead. It’s all his fault.

He told them to trust the rat.

A movement out of the corner of his eye griped Sirius's attention. He stood and-

A face looked back at him.

He picked up the little girl with the piercing blue eyes and something in him gasped with relief. Luna was alive. Baby Luna was alive. Tear tracks on her face and a nasty cut on her forehead but she had survived.

Sirius had been made the Godfather to the Potter children by rite of Magic and one of his charges, his family, had survived. He was torn between crying for joy and chasing down Peter for the sake of avenging his lost.

Hagrid came and took the decision away.

When Sirius Black was dragged away by the aurors, his only consolation was that his goddaughter was safe.

 

A man with the name, Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore looked down at baby Luna through half moon glasses and squinted.

 

Like in so many other lives, a baby was left on a doorstep to the worst sort of Muggles of whom everyone would know their name.

* * *

 

The aftermath:

A girl named Luna grew up in a house where no one loved her and she loved no one and the girl spent her life feeling like something was missing.

She still saw nargles and fairies and gnomes and the magical in the mundane. She still had knowledge of impossible things and acted in ways that seemed to have no reason to the small minded, but she was different in a way she couldn’t comprehend.

Sometimes, when something impossible happens Luna turns with excitement to tell something to someone who isn’t there.

Sometimes, when she thinks of the words “Mother” and “Father” she comes up with four faces instead of two.

Sometimes, her eyes lock on Dudley’s second bedroom and she’s sure there’s something there she’s not Seeing.

Sometimes, when she goes to sleep, she sees green eyes and a shock of black hair and she thinks, “brother,” and wakes up with tears in her eyes.

Luna knows she’s different. Knows she’s special and learns early on that whatever she is isn’t tolerated.

After being on the end of her “Uncle Vernon”’s belt and narrowly avoiding a counselor's visit in her first week at Primary, she quickly learns not to speak unless spoken too.

And, sometimes that doesn’t even help.

 

Luna’s “Aunt” Petunia is cruel in a different way. She assigns her chores, insults and belittles her and out of the two of them is the most dangerous because when she punishes her she is creative.

 

(The cupboard didn’t have locks until Luna was three and insisted magic was real for the first time. She didn’t get out for more than bathroom breaks for two weeks. The cupboard also didn’t have a light bulb in it for longer than that.)

 

When Petunia was in a talkative mood she takes great delight in telling her that she is the product of an affair between her Mother and another man. (“How else would you get that coloring?”) And Luna tries, tries to ignore her but it doesn’t always work.

 

The only thing that can make her life bearable is her Sight. If she wants to, she can focus on Seeing and nothing else. Magic is everywhere, from the wrackspurts nesting in Petunia's nose to the very walls of her cupboard and she can See it all.

Doing this has danger, though.

Once, she stayed in the Sight for three days and collapsed from dehydration at school. She hadn’t felt hunger or thirst or even pain in any form more than abstract and that had nearly killed her sooner than he Dursley’s.

Luna grows up being called “crazy” and “freak” and she nearly believes it until she doesn’t and the opinions of those around her stop mattering to her. What matters, she learns, is that the people around her believe them.

One of the boys Dudley had roped into hurting her held her arms behind her back in a nervous grip. Luna turned and looked him dead in the eye and spoke without prompting for the first time in months.

“I know how you are going to die,” She tells him calmly, with a serene smile gracing her face. “And if you don’t leave right now, I am going to tell you.”

The boy believes her and runs away, pale and shaking. Luna uses this as an opportunity to escape.

And the feelings that bubble up at the Dudley’s gang’s confused shouting had never felt sweeter.

* * *

 

On August first, 1991, a letter comes that Luna feels like she’s been waiting for her whole life and she opens it straight away.

She finds an owl and sends her reply and a man named Hagrid (who Luna knows is familiar somehow) come to take her into the world she has been waiting for her whole life.

She walks into the pub and the people there call her “The-Girl-Who-Lived” and behave like she’s their savior. Luna smiles politely and something in the pit of her stomach tells her there was a mistake.

But, Diagon Ally is amazing and wonderful and she can almost ignore the feeling.

 

Her wand is ebony wood and phoenix feather, fourteen and a half inches.

Not the rarest combination, according to Mr. Ollivander, but the materials make it unique. The wood is from a lone tree to survive a fire that devoured the rest of the forest and phoenix feather from a bird who gave only two. One of which went to the Dark Lord.

“With a wand like yours, I believe you have a trying path in front of you, child. But you are capable of great things, much like the one who held the brother of your wand. No one can deny, He-who-should-not-be-named has done terrible things, terrible but great.”  
Hagrid returns with a beautiful snowy owl and hands it to her with a big smile. Luna takes a long moment to look at it and declares it’s name to be Harriet.

Hagrid starts and Harriet clucks appreciably.

* * *

 

It’s September 1st, 1991.

Luna sits alone on the Hogwarts express, reading her textbooks and talking to Harriet when she get’s bored. Once, a red haired girl had stopped near the door but then kept walking and didn’t come in.

Luna convinces herself she isn’t bothered.

 

The castle is grand and the smile on her face becomes genuine when she sees it. When inside the magic around her hums and sings and she wants to twirl around and revel in it.

She doesn’t, because that would grab attention and attention in her experience had never been good, so she compromises to a wide smile and a quiet hum back.

The sorting is interesting and she is content to stand to the side and watch. When they call her name it provokes a reaction to the people around her that makes her heart beat faster and finds herself wanting to hide in her Sight again.

She walks forward, looking for all the world to be unconcerned and sits patiently on the stool to be sorted by the singing Hat.

The hat falls over her ears and she feels a presence where she is usually alone. She mentally pokes it.

“Oi!” The hat starts and Luna’s lips twitch.

“Sorry,” She thinks and feels it’s grudging acceptance.

“Lovegood,” The Sorting Hat made the mental equivalent of a huff. “Should’ve known. Never quite do as expected. Though, that’s not all you are. Is it?” The Sorting Hat stated. Luna thought that was a bit obvious.

The Sorting Hat gave the mental equivalent of rolling it’s eyes at her thought. “Let’s see… Oh my, life’s not been kind to you. You have a strength of character that would serve you well in all houses though your stubbornness and tendency to be aloof would set you apart with the Hufflepuffs.

I do not believe you would do well with the lions, either. Though you can be brave, you share little other qualities that would make a Gryffindor and I believe your housemates would not take well your refusal to conform.

That leaves Slytherin and Ravenclaw. You’d make a fine Slytherin. You are clever, cunning when you want to be and have a thirst to find your place that would make wary the most ambitious of Salazar’s chosen, if not the typical motivation.

You also have all the makings for one of Rowena’s few. Your curiosity can drive you to places I can scarcely imagine and it is there you would find the answers you seek. However, I do not believe you’d ever be truly happy there. The eagles, for all their love of learning, can be quite narrow minded to those who are not of the same like.”

“Both of these houses will help you to find greatness, though of different sorts. So, what will it be, Ms. Lovegood-Potter? Ravenclaw or Slytherin?”

 

Luna thinks of days of loneliness and scaring that boy that one day and feeling the rush of relief and power.

She thinks of vacant smiles and spending days in her head when it got to be too much and almost dying because of it.

She thinks of not wanting to be helpless and she thinks of the moment when she realized she had to stop speaking, stop asking questions to be safe and how that out of everything hurt the most.

She thinks of the curiosity that lives in her bones and her Sight and how it might just kill her if she lives her life without knowing-

“Better be, RAVENCLAW!”

 

* * *

 

Months later, she stands in a dusty room with a mirror that shows what you desire most and stares into the face of the man who killed her family.

She grips the wand the two-man hadn’t managed to take and listens as she is told a story of a prophecy and a boy who was supposed to be a hero but through some twist of fate that destiny was left on the shoulders of someone who wasn't even considered.

“You,” The two faced man says, “Were never meant to The-Girl-Who-Lived.”

 

If the words are meant to hurt her she doesn’t show it. “I know,” she says.

 

Luna looks back at the mirror, a boy near her age with green eyes and a shock of black hair smiles warmly at her and shows her the stone in his hand. The boy reaches over and puts it in her reflection’s pocket and gives her an encouraging nod.

She feels the stone in her pocket and she looks at Voldemort.

“But,” Luna says, “It is my destiny all the same.”

 

She raises her wand and begins to cast.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that's that folks. I moved up the canon timeline about a year as to match Luna's Hogwarts years. All thoughts and opinions are appreciated and if any you have questions I'll do my best to answer! I hope you all have a fantastic day!


End file.
